Viola Davis gets fierce as a warrior

 

  An actress of intense focus, Viola Davis might have been born to play a female warrior — not a Wonder Woman style superhero but a a battler born of hard experience and bone-deep commitment. With a swaggering walk and steely gaze, Davis mixes indomitable will and commitment to principle.

   Inspired by a true story, The Woman King introduces us to the so-called Amazons or in terms of Dahomey culture, the Agojie. These were women trained for war in the Kingdom of Dahomey after many of  its men were captured and sold into slavery by the rival Oyo empire. 

  The conflict between Oyo and Dahomey forms a backdrop for plentiful action sequences in which the women prove their formidable strength. 

  Director Gina Prince-Blythewood, working from a screenplay by Dana Stevens and Maria Bello, finds the heart of the movie when she introduces Nawi (Thuso Mbedu),  a young woman who’s handed to the Agojie by her father.

  Cocky and arrogant, Nawi must learn to submit to the Agojie ethos, which roughly amounts to one for all and all for one: Military success relies on the smooth functioning of the group rather than on individual heroics — although there’s plenty of the latter,  The Woman King being a movie not a historical tract.

  Men don’t much feature in the story, primarily because the Agojie are housed in a separate and restricted part of the king’s palace.    

   John Boyega portrays the Dahomey ruler, King Ghezo, a monarch with many wives and mildly conservative views. Davis’s Nanisca tries to convince the king that selling Africans is wrong regardless of the ethnic group to which someone belongs. 

  Two additional women (Adrienne Warren and Lashana Lynch) distinguish themselves as Agojie warriors, mentors and confidants.

   European intrusions arrive in the form of a white slave trader (Hero Fiennes Tiffen) and his pal Malik (Jordan Bolger). Born of an Africa mother and a white father, Malik has been sent to Dahomey by his mother to find his roots. 

  Nawi catches his eye and the screenplay toys with a dubiously plotted romance while trying to remain true to the notion that the last thing the Agojie need are male protectors. 

   The Woman King team creates an alluring Dahomey village where the Agojie train and where Nanisca eases her strained muscles in the azure waters of an indoor pool, perhaps the 19th century equivalent of a hot tub.

    If the Dahomey village has been idealized, so be it. Viewers may find other suggestions of the kind of cultural celebration that existed on a much more hyper-realized level in Black Panther. 

   Aside form the slavers, the principal villain in the piece arrives in the person of Oda (Jimmy Odukoya), who rules over the Oyo and ruthlessly participates in the slave trade in alliance with the Portuguese. Nanisca has her own reasons for wanting to vanquish Oda. 

   The Woman King was filmed in South Africa, not in the West African nation of Benin, as the former Republic of Dahomey now is known. Presumably, the rituals and dances staged by Prince-Blythewood  reflect a degree of authenticity.

   As for historical accuracy, a little time with Google will let you know that the movie cuts corners, opting to provide what might might be considered an outline of the forces at work in West Africa during the second decade of the 19th century.

   Whatever its shortcomings, The Woman King has Viola Davis, who’s playing a character enhanced by conviction and strength wrought from the punishing toil of living.

    The sight of Nanisca charging an enemy, her scimitar pointing skyward, will make you believe that she can strike fear into the hearts of anyone who would do her wrong.

A hostage-taker with small demands

     

  Watching Michael K. Williams in Breaking serves as a forceful reminder of how much the late actor commanded every scene in which he appeared. Williams, who grew up in a tough Brooklyn world,  died of a drug overdose in September of 2021. He was 54.

   It's worth remembering Williams's great performances as Omar Little in The Wire and as Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire. Williams was a rare actor whose anger, ferocity, and intelligence made him unforgettable.

   That's an odd way to begin a review of a movie in which Williams plays a supporting role but I wanted to acknowledge an actor whose presence always seemed to burn through the screen.

   In Breaking, Williams plays Eli Bernard, a police negotiator who tries to persuade the movie's main character (John Boyega) to release two employees (Nicole Beharie and Rosa Diaz) he's holding hostage at a small bank.

   Based on a true story, Breaking stands as an indictment of the VA. A botched VA payment of a paltry $892 triggered a breakdown by Boyega's Brian Brown-Easley. 

   A former marine, Easley teetered on the line separating an earnest young man from someone who had slipped into paranoid fantasy. 

   A terrific Boyega makes it clear that Easley didn't want to hurt anyone, even though he threatened to detonate a bomb if the VA didn't meet his ludicrously modest demand. 

    An absurd media frenzy enriched the premiere hostage movie -- Dog Day Afternoon. Director Abi Damaris Corbin  also charts Easley's attempts to attract media coverage. Easley eventually establishes contact with a producer (Connie Britton) at a local TV station. But the media isn't a target here.

     Corbin maintains a seriously committed point of view throughout: After serving in the Persian Gulf, Easley was discarded by a bureaucratic system that rendered him invisible.

    Breaking isn't a perfect movie. Contrasts and connections between Easley and Bernard, both former marines, are provided in sketchy fashion, and Bernard's clash with unsympathetic white officers in the Georgia town where the story is set are shortchanged. Tension comes and goes.

      But a strong cast is anchored by Boyega's memorable performance as a who young man who asked for very little -- and couldn't even get that. 

'Skywalker' closes a long 'Star Wars' series

JJ Abrams' finale is sure to inspire pros, cons and middling reactions, but it gets the job done.

JJ Abrams moves quickly through his 2 1/2 hour wrap-up of the Skywalker series, making sure the pack the movies with ingredients designed to please the fan base while arriving at an entirely expected destination. That's not a spoiler. What? You expected evil to triumph?

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker -- the ninth movie in the series -- brims with the battles, familiar characters and the sentiment that we've come to expect from the Star Wars movies. Maybe that’s enough.

I looked at the one-line description of the movie on IMDb: It reads, "The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga." Do you need to know much more?

Some fans felt Rian Johnson veered too far from the revered Star Wars formula in the previous chapter, The Last Jedi. I enjoyed that movie's approach but also believe that Abrams had no choice but to reassert the franchise's familiar themes in bringing the Skywalker saga to its conclusion.

Almost from the movie’s start, Daisy Ridley's Rey leads the charge against the aforementioned First Order, an evil group that's trying to establish a new empire of Siths. As the story unfolds, various characters will find their true selves, Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) again will rear his hideous head and a bit of nostalgic casting will make us remember when Star Wars had yet to reach industrial-strength levels.

Billy D. Williams revives Lando Calrissian; the late Carrie Fisher appears briefly as Princess Leia. (Abrams used footage shot but not used in the last episode). Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) gets a bit more screen time, as do C-3PO and R2-D2. Mark Hamill turns up.

Working from a screenplay he wrote with Chris Terrio, Abrams mixes droids, creatures and many of the characters who have taken over the series: John Boyega's Finn, Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, and Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron.

En route to its conclusion, the story makes more stops than a local subway train. The crew of Poe's ship breathlessly hurries from one place to the next, servicing the plot as they push forward.

The finale, of course, delivers the expected mix of action and emotion. For me, the emotion is more understood than felt, but fans may buy into it. In some ways, the plot of a Star Wars movie hardly matters because all of them pit the forces of hearty rebels against imperial evil, just as all build toward genealogical revelations about who's related to whom.

Of the creatures, the most amusing arrives when Maz (Lupita Nyong'o) reappears to perform a technical operation that's needed to keep the story moving.

Did I mention that Naomi Ackie plays a new character; Her Jannah rides a kind of hybrid creature that most resembles a horse that has been outfitted for Mardi Gras.

Pile on the effects, rely on Isaacs to add a bit of swashbuckling swagger, challenge Daisy's identity and throw in a surprise or two about the other characters.

The Star Wars series has given Disney the proverbial license to print money. Parts of the fan base always find something to grumble about. Others will feel that they've been amply rewarded. I can't imagine anyone would want to walk into The Rise of Skywalker if they haven't seen the previous eight movies.

Why rattle on? I'm not enough of a fanboy to get staunch about Skywalker. It's enough to say that Abrams has finished the Skywalker series in ways that mostly satisfy, providing some epic sights as he goes.

Case closed. Box office open.

'Pacific Rim' sequel fails to rise

A new group battles to save the Earth, but this sequel offers little reason to cheer.

In the summer of 2013, director Guillermo del Toro scored at the box office with Pacific Rim, a movie that introduced audiences to Jaegers, gigantic robot-like creations that stomped through the nation's multiplexes. Jaegers were deployed against the Kaiju. In case you need reminding, the Kaiju were genetically engineered amphibious monsters that arrived on Earth through a portal in the Pacific Ocean — or something like that.

What proved winning about Pacific Rim had less to do with plot or even with its high-stakes battles than with the sheer scale at which Del Toro allowed his imagination to take over the screen.

As just about everyone knows by now, del Toro reigned in the scope of his imagination to make The Shape of Water, a smaller movie but a wise career choice. The Shape of Water won a best-picture Oscar and Del Toro took home the Oscar for best director.

Now comes Pacific Rim Uprising, the inevitable sequel to the first installment. Del Toro remains as one of the film’s gaggle of producers (14 in all) but directing chores have been taken over by Steven S. DeKnight, whose previous directing experience mostly involves TV work.

In DeKnight’s hands, the franchise becomes little more than a collection of cacophonous battle sequences that already have evoked apt comparisons with the Transformer movies. A preview audience seemed to include more kids than I expected. It's possible that 12-year-olds will be Uprising's bread and butter.

A short reaction: Enormous Jaegers guided by pilots who operate inside the robots' heads, giant sea monsters that make a late-picture appearance and a cast that’s subordinated to a flood of effects mark a movie that stomps hard but can't shake loose from the deadening bonds of repetition.

That's not to say that the cast doesn’t work hard. John Boyega, familiar from the latest round of Star Wars movies, appears as Jake Pentecost, the son of the Idris Elba character from the first edition. A renegade from the Pan Pacific Defense Corps that a decade ago fought the Kaiju, Jake makes his living salvaging parts from Jaegers that were discarded after the war that shook the first movie.

Jake is joined by a sidekick, Amara (Cailee Spaeny), an orphaned teenager who has built her own Jaeger and who is recruited to train as a Defense Corps pilot. Naturally, Jake is coaxed back into the Defense Corps where he engages in manly banter with his former co-pilot (Scott Eastwood) as they fulfill their assignment, training a new generation of Jaeger pilots.

Never mind the Chinese corporation that wants to create automated Jaegers that don't need pilots.

Spaeny conveys the required spunk. Boyega projects plenty of gruff magnetism. But there's more smash-and-crash than acting as the movie moves toward a climax in which a crew of teenage Defense Corps recruits must save the world, a task that can’t be accomplished without destroying large parts of Tokyo.

It's possible that Pacific Rim will click with audiences impatient for an early helping of summer, and, of course, it's set up for another sequel. Maybe Boyega and company can find a more engagingly novel third helping.

A welcome 'Star Wars' addition

Director Rian Johnson takes the reins for Last Jedi and the result mostly satisfies.

Now, where were we?

If you're among the zillions of Star Wars enthusiasts, you know that the last chapter (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) concluded with young Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding her way to a remote island where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) had withdrawn from all things Jedi, including battling whatever evil currently had harnessed the dark side of the series' fabled Force. Luke, we learned, had hung up his Lightsaber.

Now comes Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the next installment of what's billed as a Star Wars sequel trilogy -- and the plea for Luke to shake off his funk continues.

This edition should please fans as it deftly barrels its way through two and half hours with only a few lags as the screenplay fulfills expositional obligations.

Director Rian Johnson (Brick and Looper) picks up the reins from J.J. Abrams and gives us a Star Wars with a bit of nuance, flashes of humor and plenty of well-crafted action.

What brings the whole enterprise to life -- aside from the generosity of its spectacle -- are the inner torments of characters who embody the great Star Wars theme: the tension between the light and dark sides of the force. This clash, of course, includes the knowing acknowledgment that even the most morally superior characters might be a hairsbreadth away from answering the dark call.

In a way, the plot of any Star Wars movie could be its least important attribute. You already know that Rey has found Luke Skywalker, so the only remaining question is whether she persuades him to leave his island retreat -- formally known as the planet Ahch-To -- and return to action as an inspiration for the Resistance, which is busy fighting the First Order.

The First Order, of course, is run by Supreme Leader Snoke, a cadaverous-looking creep played by Andy Serkis with the usual CGI boost. Snoke has great power, but looks so decayed, you half wonder how he lifts himself out of bed in the morning.

Disney, which has taken charge of the Star Wars franchise, has cautioned critics against revealing spoilers. I don't consider it a spoiler to tell you that unlike its 2015 predecessor, this edition includes more than a cameo appearance by Hamill. His Luke quickly establishes himself as a cranky, bearded figure who has shed every bit of the wide-eyed enthusiasm of his character's youth.

A bit of sadness tempers the fun. The Last Jedi marks Carrie Fisher's last performance. Fisher appears as General Leia Organa, head of the Resistance, and yes, Fischer's presence is more than ceremonial. (Fisher died a year ago this month.)

Johnson does a good job of weaving new characters into a mix that brings back Adam Driver, who digs as deep as he can as Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren tops Snoke's list of prospects to become the new Darth Vader. Ren, you'll recall, killed his father, Han Solo, in the last episode.

Look for Laura Dern, with purple hair, as Vice Admiral Holdo, evidently the second in command of Resistance forces after General Leia. Benicio del Toro plays DJ, a hacker who knows how to disable a device that figures heavily in the plot. Del Toro gives Last Jedi a sly, juicy boost. Finn (a returning John Boyega) and Rose Pico (newbie Kelly Marie Tran) are forced by circumstance to trust del Toro's genially larcenous character.

As you can tell, many characters populate this increasingly complex story. Oscar Isaac returns as the dashing pilot Poe Dameron. Also returning: Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, another First Order purveyor of evil, and Lupita Nyong'o, the goggle-eyed pirate Maz.

Ridley already proved herself a worthy addition to the Star Wars fold and does nothing here to convince us that we weren't right to welcome her for what evidently will be a long run.

Johnson and his production team gives us plenty of visual diversion -- from Luke's monkish stone hut (it looks like something sculptor Andy Goldsworthy might have created) to the imperially sized vessels of the First order to the obligatory trip to a bustling casino planet -- it's called Canto Bight -- where rogues, aliens, and intergalactic swells meet and mingle.

New creatures pop up, notably cute little Porgs, a type of seabird that inhabits the planet Ahch-To. Thankfully, the Porgs are used sparingly enough not to create an overdose of cuteness, the dreaded Ewok effect.

Look, directing a Star Wars movie requires an ability to juggle a large cast of characters without creating too much confusion, as well as a commitment to preserving Star Wars mythology without miring the series in undue reverence for its past. Every new Star Wars movie must earn its own stripes.

Johnson gets the job done and, in the bargain, makes us the beneficiaries of his success.

Will we allow technology to ruin us?

The Circle wrings its hands over a problem that already has been explored elsewhere. The movie fails to pack a persuasive punch.

When we're on-line are we using our computers or are our computers using us? And what about all those apps that allow us to share everything about our lives? Have we become genial participants in the destruction of our own privacy?

These and related questions constantly are debated when we discuss -- often on the very technology that's under consideration -- the increasingly linked world many of us spend far too much time inhabiting.

The great fear, of course, is that corporations with sinister motives are taking charge of all this "connection," turning us into a nation of idiots who blindly worship technology without giving enough thought to the gods before whom we're bowing. It's not only our data but our heads that are stuck in various clouds.

Such thoughts inform The Circle, a new movie based on a 2014 novel by Dave Eggers, who co-wrote the screenplay with the movie's director James Ponsoldt (The End of the Tour and The Spectacular Now).

The movie stars Emma Watson as a young woman who lands her dream job with a company called The Circle. The Circle seems to be one of those "hot" Silicon Valley businesses that specialize in developing apps that create synthetic communities. The company's latest invention -- a tiny camera that can be placed anywhere without fear of detection -- is celebrated at a gathering presided over by the company's president, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks).

Bailey calls the project SeeChange. He introduces the camera with the committed fervor of someone who believes that life never again will be the same -- and that the great shift he's selling is a very good thing.

Bearded and adopting the friendly attitude of a tycoon who's adored by his employees, Hanks appears only intermittently as the movie introduces Emma's Mae to The Circle's corporate culture, which includes monitoring every employee's health and pushing participation in a variety of extra-curricular activities designed to strengthen bonds of camaraderie.

Of course, everything at The Circle seems a bit artificial, and the company's concern about the well-being of its workers might be a bit much even for these isolated tech nerds to swallow.

Much of the movie plays like a parody of the sort of companies at which campuses have replaced offices and order is imposed in ways that sustain an illusion of free-form play.

Eamon rules the company with a partner, an underutilized Patton Oswalt, who does more to suggest manipulative ambition than Hanks.

A wasted John Boyega portrays Ty, the man who created the company's signature app, TruYou. Ty wanders around the campus, occasionally bumping into Mae with whom he shares his cynicism about The Circle.

Privacy becomes the movie's big issue. How much are we willing to surrender? Are the benefits of SeeChange (everything from suicide prevention to halting child abuse) real?

Mae becomes the human guinea pig for testing SeeChange, wearing the tiny camera at all times and turning into an Internet star. She also loses her relationship with a low-tech pal, Ellar Coltrane in a wobbly performance that makes him appear like a non-actor and makes us even more appreciative of the work that director Richard Linklater did with him in Boyhood.

Watson's performance seems to stick close to the surface, but her character could have been better drawn. Same goes for Hanks' Eamon, and although the movie raises intriguing questions, it expresses them with a ton of on-the-nose dialogue that lacks the eloquence of, say, the on-the-nose dialogue Patty Chayefsky wrote for Network, a movie that, in its talky way, was prescient about reality TV and the tendency to turn news into entertainment.

Besides, the principal characters in Network were grown-ups, not 29somethings who seem to approach the workplace as if it were the playgrounds they wish they'd never outgrown.

The late Bill Paxton appears as Mae's father, a man crippled by MS. Paxton's presence -- which reminds us of his absence -- has an emotional impact the filmmakers couldn't have anticipated.

There's nothing wrong with a movie that wants to play with issues and ideas. What such movies need, though, are deeper characters than those who populate The Circle.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to Google a name that I saw dropped on Facebook.

Yes, the Force really awakens

J.J. Abrams gives George Lucas' franchise new life.

A mixture of new and old faces help director J.J. Abrams relaunch the Star Wars series, now part of the Disney empire. Those who feared that Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens wouldn't honor George Lucas' long-running achievement needn't fret: Abrams has created a transitional movie that contains a mostly winning mix of Star Wars nostalgia and new additions.

Truth be told, the series may be better off now that Lucas has handed the reins to someone else. Abrams, who also helped revive the Star Trek franchise, easily surpasses the last three films: The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Abrams took no chances when it comes to filling the movie with actors who serve as reassurance that Disney plans to respect the Lucas legacy.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is not that Harrison Ford returns as Han Solo, but that he's actually in a substantial amount of the movie -- along with his old pal Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew).

Ford's appearance -- as well as that of Carie Fisher, C-3P0 and R2-D2 -- helps launch the cast that presumably will carry the series forward, namely Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, a feisty young woman who rises from the role of space scavenger to helping to save the galaxy from the First Order.

In case you haven't been reading the advance stories, The First Order is the evil organization that has taken over where the Empire left off.

Ridley's Rey, who lives on the planet Jakku, is joined in her efforts by Finn (John Boyega), a Stormtrooper who defects from the First Order.

Finn has no interest in being an enforcer for the Dark Side, represented here by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie).

Driver's Ren gets the most screen time: He wears a mask and speaks in a Darth Vaderesque voice, although he's not quite as imposing as his predecessor.

Oscar Isaac turns up as another newbie; he plays Poe Dameron, a gung-ho pilot for the Resistance.

Without making too much of a fuss about it, Abrams introduces a variety of new creatures and a new droid, a rolly-polly creation known as BB-8 that struck me as something of a lovable high-tech beach ball.

The movie's meager plot involves a search for Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Luke must be found because he's the last remaining Jedi, the only person capable of ensuring that the Force is passed to a new generation.

Did I care about the plot? Not really. And although the movie's screenwriting team (Lawrence Kasdan, Abrams and Michael Arndt) adds plenty of winking humor, it may be less about generating laughs than serving as a welcome reminder that the original movies weren't ordeals: They were fun.

There's even a scene that pays homage to Lucas' penchant for taking us to bars where aliens hang-out with Lupita Nyong'o giving voice to Maz Kanata, a space pirate whose eyes are covered with goggles and who dispenses a bit of wisdom -- or what passes for it in a Star Wars movie.

Of course, composer John Williams returns to score his seventh Star Wars film.

Despite the presence of the kind of father/son elements that informed the better Star Wars movies, we probably should consider it a positive development that a young woman has a major role here and likely will continue to have one as the series progresses.

Who knows? Given enough time, Rey may even give Katniss Everdeen a run for her money.